Happy belated St. Patrick’s Day to y’all! I missed getting this post out so thought I’d share it here a couple of days late. This winter has been crazy busy with my mother-in-law coming to stay with us, helping her find a new home and now helping her unpack.

Between working at school, the craziness there and helping Mom on the weekends, I just haven’t been writing (or photographing) much lately…

It is really nice to have this week off from school to be able to relax a bit, try and get over a head cold (yuck!), and later this weekend I head out to Athens, Texas for an IOOF state assembly meeting. It’s just a one-day event on Monday, so I won’t be back to work until Wednesday ~ which makes our holiday week extend a little longer. 🙂

I have been cleaning and redecorating a bit with changes to the china hutch ~ switching it over from Valentine’s (never got a post out…) to a spring/Easter theme. (Might get it out.) It looks nice as I sit here and type!

I had been repotting my mother-in-law’s cuttings from her 57 year old garden in California and a bunch have made it three months now! Two roses have rooted for sure, and several other plants have as well. All had unfortunately sat overnight in hard freezing temps in her car while she and her son (Mr. Ethereal) slept in a hotel on their way here over New Year’s.

About half of those plants have survived with many of the succulents doing the best. No geraniums made it, though… 🙁 Just too cold for them in that car and here. 🙁

But spring is coming and with a good fertilizer feed, I expect these survivors to begin putting on leaves and to start flourishing.

I’ve just moved my plants out of the greenhouse/potting shed and I’ll get a post out as soon as the yard is swept up and looking tidy. I ordered some bulbs online and got those nepeta and hellebores planted this week from Dutch company K. Van Bourgondien (not sponsored, but would love to be!).

The dwarf magnolias I bought at Lowe’s last month and sheltered in the shed are bursting into bloom! They made it through the second Arctic overnight 25 degrees just fine, piled with leaves and wrapped against the cold with a garden quilt. I put them back in the shed so their tender open petals wouldn’t be blown off in the 45 mph gusts we had on Thursday and Friday.

I will shoot some more pics for you! They are gorgeous… This type of magnolia only grows to about 12′ tall and wide, which is perfect for our backyard.

St. Patrick’s Day

BY ELIZA COOK

St. Patrick’s Day! St. Patrick’s Day!

Oh! thou tormenting Irish lay—

I’ve got thee buzzing in my brain,

And cannot turn thee out again.

Oh, mercy! music may be bliss

But not in such a shape as this,

When all I do, and all I say,

Begins and ends in Patricks’s Day.

Had it but been in opera shape,

Italian squall, or German scrape,

Fresh from the bow of Paganini,

Or caught from Weber of Rossini,

One would not care so much—but, oh!

The sad plebeian shame to know

An old blind fiddler bore away

My senses with St. Patrick’s Day.

I take up Burke in hopes to chase

The plaguing phantom from its place;

But all in vain—attention wavers

From classic lore to triplet quavers;

An “Essay” on the great “Sublime”

Sounds strangely set in six-eight time.

Down goes the book, read how I may,

The words will flow to Patrick’s Day.”

***found on Poetry Foundation.org

And we’ve begun working on the fence again…

St. Paddy’s Day winds swirled around and pulled the east end of the southern fence away from its post. Hubby has since tied it back with a bungie cord. Now the next post towards where I was standing is pulling out… Good thing Hubby put in 10 metal fence posts for the new fence just outside of view!

Must be those rascally Leprechauns…

We had swirling winds during the day on Thursday. Dust devils pushed leaves up on the patios out back and in front. Forget about blowing them off!

During the night the rain storm showed up with cool cloud-to-cloud lightning…

And that’s kinda how our St. Patrick’s Day was ~ super windy and then spotted rain. Made a mess of our cars; got a car wash today while filling the tank (yikes! almost $100…)

More rain and winds are expected this coming week. We sure need the rain! Texas is in its 3rd year of drought, from what I see. So used to drought, coming from California… (roll eyes!)

Well, that’s it for today, friends!! I hope you had a lovely St. Patrick’s Day and might have even eaten some corned beef and cabbage. I forgot to buy some at the store but it sure would have tasted good… ;)’

Happy blessings to you,

Barb 🙂